WHY I AM NOT RELIGIOUS
Leo Igwe

Religion refers to the belief in god or gods, in spiritual entities or supernatural powers, including activities connected with their worship and veneration. While reason stands for the power of the mind to think in a logical way and to understand in terms of causes or to provide explanations for something that is or something that has happened or what somebody has done. Reason can also mean what is possible, sensible, practical or right. (Random House Webster’s Dictionary)

Hence I want to state that I am not religious because religion is opposed to reason. And reason is what distinguishes me – a member of the Homo sapiens - from other animals. Religion is founded on the mysterious, the incomprehensible, and the inexplicable and the irrational. Religion thrives on the impossible, the nonsensical, the impractical, and the absurd. Religious beliefs and practices are not of any use to any rational or thinking being as such except for his/her poetic enjoyment or theatrical amusement. That means that a reasonable fellow ought not take religion seriously.

But more than that, I consider religious claims false and harmful. The entire religious superstructure is founded on a lie- a very big lie- THAT THERE IS GOD (ALLAH, OLORUN, CHINEKE, ABASI…add the rest); that there is a God that created us, and that intervenes in our lives. That there is a god that is waiting somewhere (or everywhere) in heaven to send those of us who are atheists and unbelievers to Hell - which he- a benevolent deity created for us! God is a figment of a primitive, timid, intrepid and indolent mind. God is an oppressive fantasy, which held sway at the infancy of the human race. God is a bogeyman that is used to frighten and control children or adults with childlike mentality. God is what the Igbos in Nigeria call Ndii(goblin). Indeed the Bible was wrong for saying that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That is not so. Because there is no wisdom in a life of cowardice and trepidity, which is what religion all about. There is no wisdom in a “virtuous life” inspired by the fear of fictitious heaven and hell. The fear of the Lord is rather the beginning of foolishness and stupidity. It marks humankind’s tragic descent into zombie-like and anomic existence.
God, by its very definition- an absolute, infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent being- cannot have real existence. It is all phantasm. For the reality of an infinite and absolute being leaves no room for the existence of finite and contingent entities like us. Technically put, there is no real point outside a real absolute space. So, because we are, the omnipresent God is not and cannot be. Period.
Americans deceive themselves when they tell us 'In God We Trust'. Do they really trust in God? How much godliness is or can be seen in the way the American government does its things? If President Bush really trusts in God why did he invade Afghanistan and Iraq with a standing, not celestial, armies? Why didn’t he pray to God to send his angels and archangels to remove the Taliban government and capture the ever-elusive Osama Bin Laden and then move on to remove Saddam Hussein and install a government of their choice in Iraq without shedding any blood? But the Evangelical President Bush did not do so because he doesn’t really trust in God. He trusts in OIL AND IN AMERICAN WEAPONRY.
At best God is a sterile metaphor for the unknown and a gap-filling device in situations of ignorance, poverty and despair. And of what use is this kind of being in tackling these ills that plague the human society?
The god-idea is patently very impotent. Just show any man or woman who takes belief in God seriously and I will show you another fellow that is intellectually dishonest. I mean how does one reconcile the claim of the existence of a benevolent God with the evil and disasters that befall the world from time to time.
I want you to join me in asking this question- WHERE WAS GOD?

During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, WHERE WAS GOD?
During the scramble, partition and appropriation of African resources by the colonial powers, WHERE WAS GOD?
During the First and Second World Wars, WHERE WAS GOD?
During the Holocaust in Germany, WHERE WAS GOD?
During the Cambodian genocide, WHERE WAS GOD/ALLAH?
During the Rwandan genocide, WHERE WAS GOD?
During the earthquake in Lisbon (1755) and the AsianTsunamis (December 24, 2004), WHERE WAS GOD/ALLAH?
On September 11, WHERE WAS GOD?

Yes where was God Almighty when the twin towers were attacked and over 3000 innocent lives, they said it created, were snuffed out? Where was he durng the bombing in London? Was he sleeping? Was he on vacation? Where is Osama Bin Laden’s Allah that allowed the September 11 attacks? Why must it keep or kill him in hiding and not get him out at least for a few minutes chat with President Bush at the White House?
What kind of God will allow the Crusade or the Inquisition? Which kind of Allah will sanction Jihad against unbelievers? It must be a bloodthirsty entity.And does such an entity real or imagined deserve any form reverence, reckoning or recognition.
Not at all
Another aspect of the religious big lie is the scripture or scriptures as the case may be. Also known as the WORD OF GOD. Most religions have these books or writings, which they believe, are revealed or inspired by their gods. They include the Veda, Torah, Bible, Quran, the Odu Ifa collections etc. These books are said to be holy and to contain eternal and immutable truths because they are believed to be revealed or inspired sometime by god and handed down through the prophets as human guidance for all times. What an absurdity!
Incidentally, most religious believers have not realized(they really don’t want to)that their God by her very nature- a spirit- cannot talk. That God never uttered any of those words falsely and fraudulently attributed to him or her. The scriptures therefore have questionable sources and constitute a classical copyright problem.
Who has the copyright of the Bible? Who has the copyright of the Quran? Is it God, Jesus, Allah, Angel Gabriel or the prophets?. Personally I regard these truths as self evident: That the Bible is not the word of God, The Quran was not revealed by Allah.And that those who believe that the so called holy books are the WORDS OF GOD OR ALLAH are greatly mistaken And it is their holy mistakes that are at the root of religious fanaticism that is threatening to destroy the world today

A closer look at the scriptures shows that a perfect being could not have revealed them.
The scriptures contain passages with shocking descriptions of carnage, savagery and brutality. From the Bible, we have following immoral and outrageous provisions.

Exodus 22:20 “ He that sacrificeth unto any god save the LORD only, he will be utterly destroyed”
Psalm 79:6: “Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that hath not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name”

Deuteronomy 13:1-5 “If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them …And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death… So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.”

Deuteronomy 13: 6-10 “ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him. But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he dies….”

Chronicles 15:10-15 “ So they gathered themselves together at Jerusalem … And they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; That whoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (The LORD) was found of them: and the LORD gave them rest round about.”

And from the Koran we have these messages of hatred and violence;

Xxii.4 “As for the unbelievers for them garments of fire shall be cut and there shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in their bowels and skins shall be dissolved and they will be punished with hooked iron-rods.”
Xlvii.4: “When you meet the unbelievers strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives’

47:41: “When you meet the unbelievers, smite their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds”
ix.5-6: Kill those who join other gods with God wherever you may find them”
viii.12: “ I will instill terror into the hearts of infidels, strike off their heads then, and strike off from them every fingertip”

Rationally speaking, I wonder how many people that can truly say they need these vile and bloodthirsty deities and the religions that peddle them.

Related to the above is the warped and crazy idea of holiness. All religions have what the call holy lands- Jerusalem for Christians, Mecca for Muslims, India and Ibadan for the devotees of Satya Sai Baba and Sat Guru Maharaji respectively. Religions have holy places like churches, mosques, temples, synagogues ashrams etc; and holy persons like the rabbis, priests, prophets, imams, sheikhs etc. Religious believers use things – charms- like holy water, holy oil, holy handkerchiefs etc. They go to holy mountains to pray. They consult holy men and women and revere living gods and goddesses like Olumba Olumba Obu, Satya Sai Baba, Sat Guru Maharaji, Malaika etc.and other patches of mortals, the material and the mundane, which religious believers over the years have arbitrarily invested with sacredness.

I would like us to look at it more closely. What really constitutes holiness? What makes a thing, person or place holy? How do things, persons and places derive their holiness? What distinguishes, for instance a holy land from an unholy land? Since we have holy water and holy oil, do we also have holy urine (the urine of a holy man or woman) or holy feces, holy pus, holy saliva, holy fart? Do we have holy mosquitoes, holy rats, holy ants, holy snakes etc? If a person, place or thing is said to be holy, of what use is that? Will a holy mosquito not suck blood or cause malaria? Will a holy poison not kill?

The idea of holiness is not just nonsensical, it is harmful.

Pius, a staff of Nigeria’s ThisDay newspaper, had a kidney problem. To remain alive Pius needed to be going for dialysis from time to time. He did this for a while. But at a point Pius stopped going for dialysis following the advice of Pastor Temitope Joshua of the Synagogue of All Nations in Lagos, Nigeria. Pastor Joshua gave him holy water to be drinking instead of the dialysis. At a stage Pius’ health got complicated and he died. Pastor Joshua’s holy water killed Pius (it couldn’t save him) just as it has cut short so many other lives. In most cases, the so-called holy water is not portable. Believers do not boil it before drinking. As we know, unboiled or untreated water contains germs and is harmful to the human body. And just as I don’t need disease carrying bacteria-holy or profane, I don’t need religion. But I know some people do.

Further Reading
Barbera D. R. (2003) Black and Not Baptist : Nonbelief and Freethought in the Black Community.Lincoln: iUniverse, Inc

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